“Erlanger translated some of the stuff in the intact suitcase for me,” I told him. “The files she saw have code names for every agent, every contact. The code names are rarely identified, and they are always in capital letters, BLUE, FOREST, MAX, something like that.”
“Callie translated several files for me last night,” he replied. “I doubt that any of these files on domestic dirty tricks by the KGB are what we are after. The file we want would have been a First Chief Directorate file, foreign intelligence. If we had the file, even with code names, if we knew the time and place well enough, we could make a shrewd guess who the agent might be.”
He threw up his hands. “But we don’t have the file. I want you to find Goncharov, talk to him, see what he knows. There may have been a foreign intelligence file that piqued his interest.”
“Kelly said he hasn’t had access to KGB files since he retired, like four years ago,” I objected. “This administration wasn’t in office when he made his notes.”
Grafton shrugged.
“What should I do with him when I find him?”
“Talk to him, then call me. I may have an epiphany or two by then.”
“Yes, sir.”
I don’t know why, but that word “sir” often slips out when I am talking to Grafton. My mind was elsewhere. The president of the United States. Holy…! I hadn’t fallen in a hole, I’d fallen in the Grand Canyon.
I poured a cup of coffee for Kelly and took it upstairs. I kissed her cheek, and she rolled over and kissed me back. When she smelled the coffee her eyes popped open.
“We’re going to West Virginia this morning,” I told her as she sipped. “Mikhail Goncharov may be alive.”
Her eyes widened and she stared at me.
“I’ll need you to translate.”
“Alive? How could that be?”
“I don’t know. The county sheriff sent an unidentified person’s prints to the FBI. The prints may be from Goncharov. We’re going to see if we can beat the crowd, interview him first.”
“How did you learn about this?” she said, and had another sip of coffee.
“Jake Grafton knows people.” I wasn’t about to tell her about Zelda Hudson/Sarah Houston, who was supposed to be in prison. “They tell him things.”
“Let’s hope his friends are right,” she said. She put the coffee cup on the bedside table and moved my hand under her pajama top.
When we got downstairs Callie was fixing breakfast while watching Good Morning America, which was doing a segment on the political convention that was starting a week from Monday in New York. The president had the nomination sewed up, of course, but had yet to name his vice-presidential running mate. The current VP had decided for health reasons not to run again. The reporters had an inside tip, they said, that the VP nominee would be a woman.
By the time Callie and Kelly had had their breakfast, the admiral was back with the rental car. He tossed me the keys, and Kelly and I were soon on our way. Just to be on the safe side, he passed me the Colt .45.
Jake Grafton stood on the porch of the beach house and watched Tommy Carmellini and Kelly Erlanger disappear around the corner onto the highway. He went back into the house and climbed the stairs. Carmellini’s and Erlanger’s bags, such as they were, were still in the guest room. He searched everything in both bags, then spent an hour going through the room and adjoining bath.
When he finished he found Callie — she was on the screened-in porch reading files — and asked her to accompany him.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“The library. I need something to read.”
The first place I stopped was a bank in suburban Virginia. I left Erlanger in the car. Even though we made love that morning, I took the ignition key with me — maybe I’m not as good in bed as I hope I am. Inside, I visited a safe deposit box I kept at that bank under another name. I won’t bore you with details, but back when I was in the burglary business, I opened a couple boxes in the metro area under fake names and kept IDs and cash in them, just in case. We live in interesting times. I also had boxes in Los Angeles and New York, but that’s another story.
When I walked out of the bank, my new name was Zack Robert Winston Jr., and I had a driver’s license and a couple credit cards to prove it. The credit cards were no good, but they looked nice. I also had three thousand in cash in my pocket.
I told Kelly about my new name. She looked at me sort of funny. “Who are you, anyway?”
“A civil servant, the same as you.”
“Right.”
She eyed me one more time, then got busy with the radio. By the time we hit I-66 westbound, she had a jazz station tuned in.
I rolled down my window and stuck my elbow out. After all that had happened, who would have believed I made this same drive this past Tuesday? Erlanger apparently felt the same way. She didn’t say much, merely listened to the music, lost in her own thoughts.
To tell the truth, I was kinda hoping she was thinking about our romantic interlude earlier that morning. I sure was. I liked the way she kissed. Some girls sort of peck at you, but Kelly opened her mouth and glued herself to you. Just thinking about her kisses made me sigh. I glanced at her from time to time, but she was looking out her window. She had mentioned a boyfriend at one time; I drove along wondering about the state of that relationship. Was I merely a warm body who happened to be available?
By the time we reached Strasburg it was nearly one o’clock, and we both needed a pit stop. I parked in front of the Hotel Strasburg, a ramshackle white Victorian building that looked as if it predated the Civil War. We used the facilities, then ate lunch in a period dining room with real tablecloths. The food was delicious. Kelly wasn’t very talkative, so I asked about her past to get her mind off the mess we were in.
She grew up in Illinois, she said, attended Vassar and majored in Russian. She was recruited by the CIA while she was still in college, decided that she could make more money working for the government than she could in a company trying to do business in Russia, and took the plunge. That was six years ago.
“Was it a good decision?” I asked.
“Well, if I was working in the private sector I would probably be doing a lot of traveling, translating, negotiating, and whatnot. With airline travel being what it is these days, I’d just as soon stay home. With the agency I don’t travel at all except on vacations. I also work on more interesting material, I suspect, than I would in the private sector.”
“Going to stay with the agency?”
“My sister has been after me to resign and move to Santa Barbara. She owns a bakery. Right now that looks pretty good. Maybe, if I get out of this fix alive…” She gave me a wry grin. “I’m just a paper-pusher. People killing each other — I hate it. It’s against everything I believe.”
“Yeah,” I said.
The grin disappeared and she said with conviction, “The world shouldn’t be like this.”
Platitudes usually stop a conversation, and that one did. Some of the air leaked out of my romantic balloon.
We skipped dessert, slurped down coffee, and hit the road again.
Sarah Houston — her name was prominently displayed on the access pass that hung on a chain around her neck — was one of the upper-level wizards at the NSA. She spent most of her days with mathematicians creating codes for the U.S. government and military and breaking foreign government and military codes, and those of corporations, criminals, terrorists, and private citizens around the world who thought their communications should remain private. It was heady, cerebral stuff, and the people engaged in it were among the smartest in the world. Mental chess was a common office pastime, with moves being shouted across the room or exchanged in the corridors or break room. The former Zelda Hudson fit right in — she usually had three or four games going at any one time and won her share.